Athletic Directors nervous in spring

Friday

Apr 5, 2013 at 4:28 PMApr 5, 2013 at 4:30 PM

So when are we going to see spring sports start in earnest?

“That’s a good question,” said Yellow Medicine East Athletic Director Tim Knapper. “We’re hoping to get boys tennis in this week with a match Friday against MACCRAY. But baseball and softball are going to be tough.”

For the past two week’s YME athletes have been busy preparing for the spring sports season, though they’ve had to do that preparation mostly inside.

By Eric J. MonsonSports Editor

So when are we going to see spring sports start in earnest?

“That’s a good question,” said Yellow Medicine East Athletic Director Tim Knapper. “We’re hoping to get boys tennis in this week with a match Friday against MACCRAY. But baseball and softball are going to be tough.”

For the past two week’s YME athletes have been busy preparing for the spring sports season, though they’ve had to do that preparation mostly inside.

Just this week, the track and tennis teams made their first venture outside for practice.

“We were the first sport outside,” says YME head tennis coach Jeff Lalim with pride. “We needed shovels to do it, but we made it out here.”

Lalim said after his team got their courts fairly shoveled off they wouldn’t leave them; playing tennis till after 8 p.m. most nights.

As for the condition of softball and baseball fields, Knapper was more cautious; pointing out there is still about a foot of snow covering Richter Field.

“There are other teams that have playable fields now, so it might be an issue where we have to switch some home and away games here early,” said Knapper.

Illustrating that fact was the announcement late Tuesday that the YME baseball team will switch home and away sites with Tracy and will head there for an away game Friday.

“It’s not unusual for us to have to reschedule some of these early spring games,” said Knapper. “That’s generally in our heads when scheduling those games. So, if we miss one week, it’s not really a big deal. We don’t start to panic until we have to start rescheduling the first two, or three weeks of the season. So losing that first week is manageable. Losing the second week starts to get hairy and after that it just requires some creative scheduling.”